In 1961, an AMS General Meeting devolved in spectacular fashion: a Sherman tank, a jeep, and 50 pranksters crashed the proceedings, momentarily kidnapped the current and incoming AMS presidents, dunked the student leaders in water, and declared “a new order based on chastity and virtue.” The group were notorious campus clowns calling themselves the Intellectual Stunts Committee (ISC). Their aim? To use goofy spectacles, a spokesperson told The Ubyssey, “to dispel apathy.” Take, for instance, an attempt to paddle bathtubs from the North Shore to Spanish Banks (the goal: to prove that anything is faster than sitting in bridge traffic). Or consider their revision to club parliamentary proceedings, demanding that all speakers balance on their left foot (the goal: to ensure brevity of speech). The tubs sank, the speakers soon stood normally. But no one could fail to smile.
The ISC aimed to organize pranks that “do not hurt anyone’s feelings,” a spokesperson told The Ubyssey. Still, their stunts sometimes got out of hand. A 1961 mock crowning of a “King of the Universe” fell into chaos when a competing “King of the World” announced his wish to crown himself. The Ubyssey reported that 4,000 students gathered to witness the coronations; alarmed at the unexpected mob, the ISC tried to withdraw their king, but the crowd grew testy. A “king was hit behind the ear with an orange,” the paper reported, and some doors and windows were damaged.
Minor riots aside, usually the ISC succeeded in marshalling goofy energy for worthy ends. Consider the 1962 initiative Ugly Week, inviting the men of UBC to compete for the title of ugliest man on campus. Students gamely launched campaigns, and proceeds supported the Tibetan Relief Fund. Best remembered, perhaps, is the ISC’s 1962 “Big Push” – a group effort to roll a hospital bed from the Peace Arch to the Point Grey campus. Why, you ask? The stunt aimed to encourage donations to a textbook drive for developing nations. Organizers had hoped to collect 500 books but ended up with over 7,000.
A commitment to the ludicrous runs deep: Not to be outdone, schools across the country rallied to the ISC’s call. McGill pushed a bed from Quebec to Montreal; University of Western Ontario held the speed record; and Queens reigned supreme for distance with 1,000 miles of bed‑pushing (in laps, after police banned their bed from highways). It was a nationwide victory for absurdity over apathy – courtesy of the ISC.
